Daoguang Emperor

Daoguang Emperor (16 September 1782-25 February 1850) was the Emperor of the Qing dynasty from 3 October 1820 to 25 February 1850, succeeding the Jiaqing Emperor and preceding the Xianfeng Emperor. He was a well-meaning but ineffective man, and his reign was marked by external disaster (the First Opium War) and internal rebellion (the Taiping Rebellion).

Biography
Mianning was born in the Forbidden City in Beijing, Qing China in 1782, and he assisted in defending the Forbidden City from rebels in 1813 during the White Lotus Rebellion. In 1820, he succeeded his father, the Jiaqing Emperor, upon his death. Daoguang faced a rebellion by Jahangir Khoja in 1826, and Khoja overran the cities of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, and Yangihissar before being betrayed by a friend in March 1827, taken to Beijing on an iron litter, and being executed. The Qing regained control of its lost territory, but this rebellion was the first of many that occurred under Daoguang's rule. The British merchants' introduction of opium to China led to a massive drug problem in the country, as corrupt bureaucrats assisted the merchants in smuggling the drugs into the rest of the empire from the coast. He attempted to block the sale of opium by the British, but the confiscation of British drugs resulted in the First Opium War of 1839-1842, in which China was defeated and forced to grant the British the island of Hong Kong and control of five treaty ports, under the Treaty of Nanking. Daoguang died in 1850 at the Old Summer Palace, and his persecution of Christians during his lifetime led to the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion a year after his death.